I'm thinking about removing the popcorn celing and was wondering if it would have asbestos? It was built in 1966. Also whats the best way to texture once it's removed?

There's a home improvement forum, but to answer your question, it probably has asbestos in it. They stopped using asbestos in 78 or 79 for the most part. We re-textured with a light orange peal. I prefer smooth ceilings, but they will show any imperfections in the ceiling and cracks are very noticeable. If your soils are prone to shrinking and swelling, like the houston black clay my house is on, you will have some cracks.

This is scary as hell. I had no idea that asbestos was used in those popcorn ceilings. Our house was built in '80 or '82 and had them. When we bought it, we renovated quite a bit of it and that included the popcorn removal. We didn't do it ourselves, but still. What are the chances that it had asbestos and that it could be harming my family and I if it did?


Now the thing that I call livin' is just bein' satisfied with knowin' I got no one left to blame

If the ceiling was sprayed back in 1966, you most likely have asbestos.

To remove:

- If it has not been painted over, you are lucky, simply get a pesticide sprayer, fill with water, soak the surface, grab a scraper and go to work.

- If it has been painted, pay to have it removed, get some day laborers, a couple scrapers and let them suffer through it.

If you suspect asbestos, wear a GOOD painters mask with a filtration system, not those cheap ones you can buy for a dollar.


To retexture:

Depends on what you want and is this a project you are going to do yourself?

[This message has been edited by big ben (edited 4/26/2010 10:19p).]

We just had this done to our house before we moved in. I did a lot of research on it because I was looking at doing it myself. Bottom line is everything I read said it isn't that hard, and everyone who did it said they would pay someone to do it again. By far the messiest thing I have ever seen done in a house. Yes, you probably have asbestos in it. Yes, you can do it yourself. I didn't do it, and I am really glad I didn't. Like I said, incredibly messy. Really glad we did it before we moved in. Cannot imagine trying to do it by myself with furniture in here. Honestly, if you pay to have it done, you probably recoup most of that cost just by the updating it does for the house. If it helps, we paid about $1.50/sq. ft. to have it scraped, orange peel textured, and painted.

Dough, you are probably fine since yours was built later. Ours was built 1984 and did not have it.

Take a small(teaspoon sized) sample of the material, put it in a zip lock bag and send it to an asbestos licensed lab in your area. It should cost about $20. Find the lab on a yahoo search. Or email me and I can probably recommend one in your area or you can send it to our lab. My company is a licensed asbestos consulting agency.

If it does have asbestos I would be happy to give you tips on how to handle it and what the real risks are. I would not scrape the ceiling before determining it's composition and knowing all the facts.

We scraped our ceiling. It was a pain but I am cheap and would do it again. This was before we moved in though and we didnt have any carpet in the house. Ours probably had asbestos (built in the 70's) but I figured 8-10 hours of exposure wouldn't get me to the "tv commercial" level of damage.

Also, if you do it, get a sprayer live mentioned above. When its wet the stuff peels off easier than a potato skin. I used a drywall trowel to scrape with.